


Switched

by WitchOfTheWestCountry



Category: Biohazard | Resident Evil (Gameverse)
Genre: F/M, Implied/Referenced Torture
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-01
Updated: 2017-08-01
Packaged: 2018-12-09 21:06:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,445
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11677074
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WitchOfTheWestCountry/pseuds/WitchOfTheWestCountry
Summary: A brief epilogue/follow up to Switch





	Switched

**Author's Note:**

  * For [DarthFucamus](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarthFucamus/gifts).



> I loved Lucas and Ellen so much I couldn't leave them be. We also find out what happened to Oliver....

Ethan had a clock that woke him with a variety of soothing sounds every morning - waves, a tropical storm, birdsong.

This morning it was the sound of a rainforest.

He lay in bed listening to the outlandish birdcalls and soft rainfall, gradually getting louder the longer he left it.

He'd tried an ordinary alarm clock when he'd started back at work a few months ago, but the harsh bleeping it made had jarred him awake so violently that he found himself groping on his nightstand for a gun that wasn't there.

Rainforest sounds didn't produce the same result.

Next to him, Mia slept her heavily drugged sleep undisturbed.

Ethan got out of bed, scratching at the jagged scar on his wrist - a constant reminder of Dulvey that he wished would disappear. Sometimes, if he worried at it in front of her, Mia would weep inconsolably, so he tried not to do so. The therapist he visited every Wednesday told him the itch wasn't a physical thing, but it felt like it to him.

 

He made coffee.

The kitchen was spotless, like the rest of the house. The memory of the Baker's filthy kitchen was too strong in their minds to allow them any relaxation on hygiene.

No dishes were allowed to sit in the sink. Food was monitored carefully, thrown out at the first hint of corruption. The fridge was cleaned out every third day.

Above all, there could be no mold in their house.

Their first week back, Mia had blistered her hands red scrubbing the bathroom with bleach, shuddering at black spots around the edge of the bathtub.

Ethan drank his coffee, washed out the mug, mopping up drops of water from the counter. He needed to shower, but he'd had a dream about Jack Baker last night, bursting into the bathroom, half of his head blown away. It was going to take him a while to psych himself up.

 

His new employers were understanding when he was late.

Umbrella had found the job for him after he'd lost his last one due to absence. Both he and Mia had spent several weeks as “guests” of the all-new corporation, giving statements, undergoing tests, and after that more weeks of psychological assessments - particularly Mia.

Ethan suspected they wanted him to be grateful for their help, but he didn't feel like he owed them anything. They admitted they’d known about the Baker family's situation long before he came along, and they had done nothing. They could have saved Mia sooner, and saved him a trip to the edge of hell at the same time.

He was glad to be working, though. He hated to admit it, but any time away from Mia was a relief. She wasn't the same woman he'd married any more - how could she be after her ordeal? - and whilst he still loved her, he found being with her hard. She was high maintenance now, and the cocktail of pills she took on a daily basis didn't make her good company.

 

At lunchtime Ethan forced himself to leave the office. He normally ate at his desk, shut away from the world, but his therapist had advised him to get out more and he'd taken the advice to heart.

He was waiting at a busy crosswalk, scanning the crowds, when he saw the man. He was half turned away from Ethan, but something about the profile looked familiar - the hooked nose, the hard angle of the chin.

Ethan felt his stomach lurch, the way it would if he missed the last step in the dark. The man started to turn towards him as if in slow motion, one bright blue eye coming into sight, then the other, and suddenly he was face to face with Lucas Baker.

Even though it had been the best part of a year since he'd last seen him, Ethan’s hand instinctively flew to his belt, looking for a nonexistent firearm. The look of surprise on the man's face seemed genuine enough, but he didn't trust the bastard one little bit.

Lucas hesitated, seeming to ponder whether he should flee or challenge him, but in the end he chose a neutral stance, raising his empty hands to shoulder height as if in surrender.

“Hold up now, Ethan,” came that familiar, hillbilly tone. “I ain't got no beef with you.”

They were surrounded by people in a busy street, barely anyone shooting them a curious glance at the little scene unfolding, but Ethan still felt shaky and vaguely sick, his glands shooting little spurts of adrenaline into his system.

He looked at Lucas, exactly the same but also totally different, his frame filled out, his skin bearing a healthy glow, his eyes less sunken and lacking that vicious glee he remembered so well.

The clothes he wore were clean, tidy, even expensive looking, and there was a silver band on the ring finger of his left hand.

“I ain't here to start nothin’,” he continued, his voice quiet yet perfectly audible. “This here's what they call a coincidence. I got other business ‘sides you. Hell, man, I got a baby on the way! I ain't about to throw down in the middle of the street!”

The man paused, studying him.

“You don't believe me.” It wasn't a question. “Reckon I can understand that, everythin’ considered. Let me buy you a drink, an’ I'll tell you all about it.”

He jerked his head towards the nearby sports bar. Ethan hovered, undecided, the tension still stringing him out.

Lucas grinned.

“C’mon Ethan - what d’ya say?”

 

Ethan watched Lucas carefully, the man's long fingers retrieving his change and tossing it carelessly into the charity bucket chained to the bar. The last time he'd seen those hands in any detail, Lucas had been ripping off his own fingernails to make a point.

Ethan left his own beer untouched as the hillbilly next to him drained half of his in one go, smacking his lips in appreciation, watching the foam slide down the inside of the glass. Lucas became aware of his attention.

“Drink up, Ethan,” he laughed. “I didn't poison it! Ah told you - I'm here on other business.”

“And what might that be?”

“That don't concern you none, if you'll pardon my rudeness. It's my business, not yours.”

Lucas finished his beer and signalled for another. He sipped this one more slowly, watching Ethan over the rim of his glass.

“You don't wanna talk. I get it.” Lucas grinned, his teeth startlingly white in the gloomy bar. “You did strike me as a man o’ few words. Strong, silent type, right? Well, I can guess what's goin’ through your mind. You're wonderin’ what I'm doin’ wanderin’ around scott free, large as life an’ twice as ugly. It's complicated. But don't you worry none. You ain't gonna get no trouble from me.”

He narrowed his eyes.

“Question is, am I gonna get any from you?”

He drummed his fingers on the bar thoughtfully, his wedding band reflecting glints of light. Ethan couldn't stop staring at it. He'd gone through months of therapy for his PTSD - therapy that was by no means over - yet he still suffered from nightmares and anxiety. Loud noises made him jump and reach for a gun, and every time his wife moved towards him he put his hands up ready to block. He still remembered, like it was yesterday, how it felt to sink an axe into his wife's neck.

And here was this asshole, happily married with a baby on the way.

Ethan clenched his fists on his lap. His left wrist still twinged in bad weather, but he thought it would still be strong enough to knock this guy on his ass.

His thoughts were interrupted by his companion's phone ringing on the bar. A picture of a woman, extraordinarily beautiful with dark blonde hair and wide hazel eyes flashed up on the screen.

Lucas picked the phone up.

“‘Scuse me, Ethan, I gotta take this. Heyyy, baby, you ok? Uh-huh. Yeah, o’ course. Hey, you'll never guess who I met. Ethan! Ethan Winters! I know, right? Uh-huh. We're at that sports bar on the corner. Well, if ya wanna. Ok, see ya soon, baby. Aw, I love you too.” He turned to Ethan. “She's been shoppin’. Baby stuff. She wants ta meet ya.”

Ethan felt a wave of unreality wash over him.

“You goddam fuckin’ sonofabitch,” he said in a low voice. “You and your family put me through all kinds of hell, nearly killed me more than once, and now you want me to meet your  _ wife?” _

Lucas leaned forward.

“You think you were the only one who went through hell, Ethan? You don't know what hell truly is. Hell is when your family gets taken over by a little bitch who ain't even human. Hell is when ya don't even know yer own mind any more cuz she's got it in the palm of ‘er tiny hands an’ she can make ya do  _ what _ she wants,  _ when  _ she wants. An’ hell is livin’ like that for 3 years, only ta see yer entire family turn ta dust before yer very eyes.  _ That's  _ hell.”

He sat back on his bar stool, those icy blue eyes that Ethan remembered in his fucked up dreams staring at him.

“Now, havin’ said that, Ethan, don't think I ain't grateful for the service you did. Ya killed Eveline.  I couldn't o’ done that. But believe me, you really don't understand what happened in that house. All weren't like it seemed.”

“You tried to kill me.”

“Uh-uh. It may’ve seemed that way, but I didn't aim ta let that happen. I needed you. An’ you got yer wife back, didn't ya? How is Mia, by the way? She doin’ all right?”

The sudden tangent threw Ethan off guard.

“She's, uh, she's good, I guess. We're both undergoing therapy - marriage and personal. This isn't the sort of thing you deal with overnight…”

“I hear ya. Whole lotta shit went down.”

Lucas sounded surprisingly sympathetic.

“All these folks here?” He gestured to the people in the bar. “They don't have the first clue about what we went through, Ethan. They wouldn't even believe it was possible.”

They looked around at the men drinking, watching the ball game, each in their own little world where humanoid bioweapons and monsters made of mold didn't exist.

A thought occurred to Ethan.

“Did Zoe make it? I always wondered. They never found her body.”

Lucas’s face darkened.

“No, they wouldn't. Eveline got to her in the end. She’s dust, just like my parents.”

“You sound upset. I got the impression you were working against her. Called her a ‘stupid bitch’, if I recall.”

“Yeah, well, that's the impression I wanted to give. I was tryin’ ta help her. Didn't work out in the end, though, did it?”

“I - I'm sorry. Really.”

Lucas shrugged, his eyes downcast.

“Was to be expected, I guess. Don't make it any easier, though…..”

He brightened.

“Eeyyyy! Here's the little lady!”

Ethan looked up to see a woman in the later stages of pregnancy walk into the bar, carrying bags of shopping. She had a kind of glow about her, one that made the men in the bar turn to gaze at her in awe as she passed, despite the large swell of her belly. As she approached them, Lucas hopped off his stool, taking the bags from her and ushering her to his vacated seat.

“Ethan, I'd like you ta meet my wife, Ellen. She knows all about our, uh,  _ connection _ , so you can talk freely in front o’ her.”

Ellen smiled at him, her angelic beauty making him feel awkward and a little flushed.

“Pleased ta meet ya at last, Ethan,” she said.

Her accent was the same as her husband's, but her voice made it softer, more melodic.

“You've heard about me?”

“Oh, I was there that day. I saw you. But you didn't see me. I was Lucas’s little secret…..”

She smiled at her husband fondly. Lucas wound his arms around her from behind, one hand resting on the upper slope of her belly.

“Yeah, I had ‘er hidden away from everyone - ma own little private treasure…..”

Again, Ethan felt a burst of anger that was tinged with jealousy - jealousy for this happy pair with their snuggles and easy affection, like nothing bad had happened. Nearly a year later, he and his wife barely touched each other - scared to awaken bad memories or incur flashbacks.

Ellen leaned forward, her face full of gentle sympathy.

“These past months must o’ been dreadful for you, Ethan. An’ for Mia, livin’ in fear all those years. Poor thing.”

Her kindliness disarmed him, the tone of her voice so full of sincere empathy Ethan found himself floundering in confusion. It would be impossible to be angry at this lovely creature with her soft voice and expressive eyes….

Ethan felt the anger drain from him. He managed a weak smile. Out of nowhere, he realised he had a unique opportunity to talk to people who knew exactly what had gone down, people he didn't need to hide the whole story from in uneasy half-truths and coded language. He'd been forbidden to tell outsiders about Eveline and the mold, and the secrecy was driving him crazy. Even Mia didn't want to talk about it.

“Well, it's been nice meetin’ ya again Ethan, but me an’ my wife need ta get goin’,” Lucas was saying.

Suddenly, Ethan didn't want them to go.

“Wait!”

Lucas waited.

“Please...could we get together again? I really could use someone to talk to. Someone who  _ knows….. _ ”

Lucas regarded him suspiciously.

“You wouldn't be tryin’ ta set me up, now, would ya?” he said, moving in closer. “Maybe collect a little reward money along the way? Cuz you an’ I both know we have some mutual acquaintances would love to know my whereabouts.”

“No! Nothing like that. It's just driving me crazy not being able to talk about it!”

“Well….maybe we could. But how do I know you ain't gonna turn me in? I'm a wanted man!”

“Look, I promise. Here's my number. Call me tonight around 7, we could arrange something. I'm not interested in telling those Umbrella bastards  _ anything _ .”

“I hope not. Cuz I can understand you wantin’ ta get even with me, under the circumstances, but do ya really think you could find it in you to hurt that there pretty lady with the little baby growin’ inside o’ her?”

He jabbed a thumb at Ellen, waiting patiently, a beatific half-smile on her face that made passersby stare and sigh.

“I'd never hurt her,” swore Ethan quietly.

“Good. Cuz if ya did, believe me - it would be the last thing you would ever do. Trust me on that.”

 

Lucas and Ellen walked along holding hands.

“Don't think I didn't notice that little mind-control thing you did back there with Ethan,” said Lucas.

“Aw, I had to, baby! He was so mad an’ upset. He needed to calm down a little, is all.”

“Can't say it ain't useful, you bein’ able ta do that. Saved our asses many a time. But d’ya really need ta use it on everyone ya meet? Their problems ain't ours!”

“I know that, Lucas, but ya know I can't stand to see people suffer if I can do somethin’ about it.”

Lucas sniggered.

“Good job that don't count fer everyone,” he said. “Did ya get what we needed?”

“Uh-huh, an’ more besides. Got Oliver a new collar, it's real nice.”

“Aw, baby, you spoil ‘im……”

 

Down in the darkness of Mr and Mrs Baker's cellar, Oliver rubbed at the rash the rope had made on his neck. He would have scratched it, but he no longer had any fingers to scratch with.

He knew the rough rope was his own fault for chewing through the nice collar Mrs Baker had bought him, and hoped she'd follow through on her promise to buy him another, although he knew he didn't deserve it.

He was a Bad Boy. She'd said so. He hated it when she called him a Bad Boy. It made him even sadder than when Mr Baker beat him.

He wished he still had a tongue so he could apologise to them both.

 

When Lucas called that night, Mia was at her pottery class, like Ethan had planned. He didn't want her knowing he was in contact with the only surviving member of the Baker family.

“Hey, Ethan. How's it goin’, buddy?”

Ethan shuddered at the tinny sound of his voice over the phone. Part of him expected the man to order him to go look in the fridge.

As if reading his thoughts, Lucas chuckled.

“Like old times, ain't it? Well, just you remember, it was your idea fer me ta call ya. So what's the plan, partner? You wanna meet up or what?”

“Yes. I can't let Mia know, though. Are you free during the day tomorrow? I can call in sick at work.”

“Yeah, I reckon that could be arranged. Tell ya what, you can come round to our house! Ellen’s been dyin’ to entertain someone.”

Lucas gave him the address.

“Don't be tellin’ anyone where I live now, Ethan. It's just a rental. I can be gone ‘fore you finished the call.”

“I told you, I'm not going to do that!”

“I was only remindin’ ya. See ya tomorrow.” He put on a more threatening voice. “Don't be late now.”

Ethan heard him laughing as he hung up.

Dick.

 

They had the bigger bed Lucas had wanted - it was huge. Ellen felt like she'd get lost in it sometimes. But despite the vast expanse of the mattress they still tended to sleep crammed together like they had in their little bed in the room under the barn.

When Ellen woke up after her dream, Lucas was plastered to her back, one arm thrown around her belly, his legs entangled with hers, his dick poking her in the small of her back.

She gently tried to disengage herself but the slight movement woke him too.

“Huh? What? What's wrong? Is the baby comin’?”

“No, baby. I just had a bad dream.”

“Another one? You been havin’ a lot o’ those lately.”

She sighed.

“I know. Guess I'm still worried….”

“Aw, c’mon, Ellen. You know the scans showed us it was normal.”

The ultrasound scans. She'd had lots of them to quell the rising paranoia she'd been having that the baby would be a product of the mold.

When Lucas had injected her back in the mines, neither of them had guessed that not only would the mold fix the broken bones and organs injured in the fall, but that it would also fix the damage Zack had done to her womb all those years ago.

The mind control powers she'd developed had also been a surprise. They didn't work on Lucas in all the experimenting they'd done, but she didn't need to use them on him: If she asked him to do something for her, he'd do it anyway. But her powers had come in useful on more than one occasion.

 

_ She'd been driving too fast, but she really needed to pee. The baby seemed to be elbowing her bladder every few seconds. _

_ The cop that pulled her over was stern-looking, and even the glance at her pregnant belly didn't change his pissed off expression. _

_ “Ma’am, do you realise how fast you were going?” _

_ “Why, officer! I was driving way under the speed limit.” _

_ “Well, yes you were, but….” _

_ He floundered. _

_ “Can I see your driver's licence?” _

_ She handed him a grocery store receipt that he examined closely for a few minutes. _

_ “Well, that seems to be in order. And who is this gentleman in the car with you?” _

_ “I'm alone, sir. And I really need to pee. Could you give me an escort to the nearest bathroom?” _

_ “Right away, Mr President, Sir!” _

 

Lucas found her talent endlessly entertaining, but couldn't hide his jealousy. Ellen thought it was just as well he didn't have the same powers: He admitted that he'd use them to make people punch themselves in the face.

 

Ellen had gotten pregnant soon after Lucas had fully healed, making him think he had some kind of supersperm.

At first she'd been scared to tell him she was pregnant, but his unfeigned and unexpected delight had nearly drowned out her unspoken fears: That the baby she carried was one of the Molded. It had worried her so much Lucas had paid for countless scans in a multitude of different hospitals in the past eight months, each one showing a normally developing foetus.

All in all, they were happy, but the nearer the birth they got, the more the dreams tormented her. The scans may have shown her that the baby was physically normal, but she worried about its mind.

She'd never believed in the supernatural before, but after her stint at the Baker's, a world capable of producing Eveline had to be capable of so much more than she'd ever realised. Who was to say that what people termed the supernatural wasn't merely a scientific process they didn't fully understand yet?

She knew on the surface that her dreams were a product of her worries about the baby and her memories from last year, but the more nightmares she had, the more she felt convinced that the baby she carried was the reincarnation of Eveline. And she was terrified.

She sighed. She really needed something to take her mind off her troubles and send her back to sleep.

“Lucas, baby?”

“What?”

“You gonna let that there thing pokin’ me in the back go to waste?”

“Aah, baby, I thought you'd never ask! Hold on, now, lemme just get Oliver out o’ the room.”

“Naw, let ‘im stay. It's more excitin’ with ‘im watchin’,” she giggled.

“You kinky lil devil…..”

From where he was chained spreadeagled to the wall at the foot of their bed, Oliver watched mournfully as Mr and Mrs Baker started to fuck. Even without his balls he was able to feel some sexual desire, and the sight of Mrs Baker riding her husband made him feel his exclusion from society all the more keenly.

He had nobody to blame for his castration but himself, though - he should never have tried mount Mrs Baker that time……

Oliver whimpered, but behaved himself otherwise. If he was good, maybe they'd let him lie down to sleep tomorrow night.

 

When Ethan arrived at the white painted house with the picket fence and the station wagon parked in the driveway he had to double check the address he'd been given. He found it hard to believe that someone like Lucas Baker could live in such a normal looking home.

Lucas himself answered the door, his face splitting into the shit eating grin Ethan remembered from the dinner table.

“Hey, Ethan! Come on in, buddy.”

Walking into the house of the man who had tormented him, set him up to fight a huge, vomiting molded and forced him to solve a potentially deadly puzzle was one of the more surreal moments of Ethan’s life. Part of him wondered if he was entering some sort of trap, but when he set eyes on Ellen Baker all his fears evaporated, to be replaced by a sort of hopeless longing.

He and Mia had attempted to have sex the previous night, but it had been a frustrating and unrewarding experience, partly because they were too afraid of hurting one another and partly because Ethan had been thinking of Lucas’s wife.

They hadn't been able to finish.

Lucas hurled himself into a chair.

“Have a fuckin’ seat, Ethan. What can I do you for?”

Ethan sat down, angling himself so he couldn't see Ellen and be distracted.

“I'm not even sure,” he said. “It's just...Mia won't talk about what happened in Dulvey, and I've been sworn to secrecy about everything that went down. I'm going out of my mind trying to deal with it all, and I can't tell anybody the truth! Something fucking unbelievable happened to me, and nobody can know….” He shook his head. “Every time i try to do something normal, I see your father in flames, blowing out his own brain, or your mother with that fucked-up hive in her crotch, trying to kill me. How the fuck am I supposed to process all that? And you, you bastard. I lie awake at night thinking about your fucking tripwires and exploding crates and I just ….. urgh. It was my birthday a few weeks ago and the people at work got me a cake. I was scared to blow out the candles in case the fucking thing exploded!”

Lucas listened, his face serious.

“Well now, Ethan, I suppose I could apologise, but that won't help anythin’, will it? I'm bettin’ you'll still continue to hate ma guts. So what I reckon you should do is jest talk. Tell me about everythin’, like I'm one o’ yer fancy therapists, git it all out. I'll listen.”

Ethan hesitated.

“Go on, now. Do yer worst. I ain't gonna be offended. Jest remember: I lived through all that an’ more fer nigh on three years, an’ saw my family destroyed in the process. So if you think you had the worst o’ it, think again. Now start.”

Ethan began.

 

He talked for the best part of four hours, fortified by Ellen’s coffee. Lucas sat and listened, not judging, not interjecting, not explaining.

Ethan told him everything - every tiny guilt, each bad thought, all the little dissatisfactions with his life, knowing that however bad what he said was, Lucas Baker had thought and done much worse. He'd seen the evidence in the form of Clancy Jarvis’s charred body.

The worst part came at the end.

“I wish I hadn't gone - that's the truth. That's the thing that keeps me awake at night. I'd moved on. I'd grieved, and accepted Mia’s death. I was in a relationship. A normal woman with a normal life and a normal job. When Mia’s email -  _ your  _ email - came, I finished it with Angela. I felt so guilty. My wife had been a prisoner for 3 years, suffering God knows what, and I'd settled down with a Texas realtor who drove a Chevrolet.”

He sighed, scrubbing at his face with the hand that Mia had cut off.

“I went to rescue her because I loved her, but I loved the woman who left to go on that ‘babysitting’ job, not the woman I brought back. It's too hard being with her now. It's too much work. And every fucking time I look at my watch, I'm reminded of how she cut off my fucking hand, but I can't be mad about it because that wasn't her fault……”

He sat back in his seat, and there was silence for a while.

“You done now?” asked Lucas.

“I think so.”

“Ok, Ethan. Here's the thing: See, I ain't one o’ your fancy therapists, but I have watched plenty of them daytime tv shows where people go on to argue with their family in public, an’ the word I've learned from them is ‘closure’. You need closure, Ethan.”

“And how am I supposed to get that?”

“Ya know what! I'm in a good mood, an’ cuz o’ that, Imma let you hit me!”

Lucas grinned at him.

“I was the last one on yer little shit list, an’ you never got ta  tussle it out with me, did ya?”

“Well, no….”

“It's like in a video game, when you got yer boss fights, an’ you gotta defeat ‘em all. I was yer last boss fight, an’ you feel like you never got to finish. So, here I am.”

Lucas got to his feet.

“Go on, Ethan. Hit me. Y’all can take as many shots as ya need.”

“I can't do that!”

“Yeah, ya can. Don't make no difference ta me! Beat the shit outta me, Ethan, it'll be fun.”

Ethan looked round at Ellen, lounging on the couch with a Kindle.

“Go ahead,” she said without looking up. “He can take it. Just don't make too much mess.”

Ethan stood, feeling awkward. Lucas made no move to attack or defend.

“I'm not sure I feel comfortable with this….”

“Aw, c’mon, Ethan! Don't be such a pussy! What's wrong, ain't man enough to lay a punch on me?”

“If you're trying to piss me off, it's not going to work….”

“Yer prolly right. Anyways, doubt ya could hit me if ya tried. You were pretty crappy shot, if I recall. How much ammo did ya waste on those molded, Ethan?”

“I wasn't that bad!”

Lucas snorted.

“Honestly, Ethan, I fer one am surprised you survived.”

“Is that right?”

“Yeah, I had a good ole laugh at ya, bumblin’ around, missin’ all the stuff I laid out for ya. Walkin’ into ma traps….” Lucas laughed. “The funniest thing? When ya broke open that fuckin’ crate an’ I'd put an explosive in it!”

“Shut up, Lucas!”

“An’....an’ ya kept shootin’ crates….cuz ya thought they'd explode an’ they didn't,” Lucas spluttered, laughing hysterically. “…...so you broke one with yer knife….an’ it blew up in yer face!”

“That's enough!”

Ethan hit him, a glancing blow that caught him on the jaw, knocking his head sideways.

Lucas smiled at him.

“Call that a punch? You hit like a fuckin’ girl!”

Ethan hit him again, harder, high up on the cheekbone, just missing his eye.

“Well, yer gettin’ there, but still ain't good enough…”

Ethan aimed for the centre of his face, throwing a punch that broke his nose and sent blood splashing onto the hardwood floor. Lucas dabbed his fingers in the blood under his nose, shrugging.

“Try usin’ yer good hand, Ethan,” suggested Lucas. “Or has Mia still got it?”

The next blow knocked him over.

“Now  _ that's  _ more like it!” said Lucas, getting to his feet. “Keep ‘em comin’!”

Ethan kept hitting, finding new targets and returning to old ones, breaking his nose over and over, knocking out teeth. Lucas picked the teeth up and pushed them back into his gums, beckoned him forward again.

He lost count of how many times he hit him, how many times he knocked him over. How many times he got back up.

Lucas kept up a litany of taunts and encouragement, driving him on, making him brutal.

He grabbed the man by the front of his hoodie, dealing him five punches in a row, rocking his head back. Still, Lucas bared splintered teeth at him, winked with a swollen eye.

In despair, his arm aching, Ethan hit him one more time - in the balls.

This time Lucas stayed down, his hands clutched between his legs.

“Fuuck…” he moaned from the floor.

Ellen looked up from her reading, mildly concerned.

“You ok, baby?”

Lucas lifted one thumb from his fetal position.

“I’m….good….” he wheezed.

Ethan took a step towards him.

“That's enough! That one actually hurt…….”

Panting, Ethan slumped into his armchair, watching Lucas unfold himself painfully.

“Shee-it,” he grumbled. “Good job I already impregnated ma wife!”

Ellen giggled.

The two men sat facing each other, Ethan’s knuckles bleeding, Lucas’s face healing.

“Ya feel better now, Ethan?”

Ethan considered.

“Do you know what? I think I actually do!”

“See? What’d I tell ya?”

“I still hate you, though.”

“Yeah, well, even with that knowledge Imma sleep like a baby.”

 

After Ethan had left, a newfound spring in his step, Ellen turned off her Kindle.

“What are you gonna do about him, Lucas? You decided yet?”

“Still ain't sure.” Lucas stared at the ceiling. “I don't know whether to kill ‘im or not.”

“Well, you best make up your mind ‘fore this baby comes. Don't want you gallivantin’ around when I need ya at home.”

“I know, I know.”

Lucas heaved himself to his feet.

“Guess I better take Oliver out for his exercise,” said Lucas. “He ain't been out all day.”

Ellen turned her Kindle back on.

“There's some scraps in the dish by the back door. He can eat those for supper. And make sure you cuff him this time! Don't want him tryna dig his way out again….”

“That won't be necessary. Imma try out his new shock collar.”

Lucas unhooked a leash and a large, spiked collar from the coat rack by the door. The collar had wires running through it, and inward pointing electrodes.

“Oliver…..!” Lucas advanced towards the basement door. “Time for walkies!”


End file.
